Fungal fruiting body

[fredg]

A photo of the fruiting bodies of a fungus that's in quite few of my pots. The 'mushrooms' appear around this time annually.
Any ideas? Is it beneficial?

 

[SubRosa]

Definitely not Psilocybe, Amanita, or Panaeolus, so I don't see any benefits.

 

[fredg]

That would be no benefits that we are aware of at this time? It's certainly not detrimental anyway. Thanks for the reply.

 

[SubRosa]

Mushrooms are opportunistic. They're exploiting a resource, which is decaying organic material. They're more a symptom of your media breaking down than a problem or benefit in and of themselves.

 

[fredg]

That media has been breaking down since I potted it up 25 years ago

 

[SubRosa]

Well you certainly got your money's worth out of it!

 

[fredg]

Well if peat broke down quickly we wouldn't have any peat bogs to exploit would we?

 

[SubRosa]

We'd just have to exploit them more quickly!

 

[fredg]

Good thinking

 

[SubRosa]

Improvise, adapt, overcome.